BlackBerry's new interim chief John Chen has just got a rude wake-up call: the company shipped only 1.9 million smartphones to retailers in Q3 compared to 3.7 million last quarter, and lost $4.4 billion. Most of the phones shipped were lower-priced BB7 models, and it lost a massive $2.6 billion on unsold BlackBerry 10 devices and other associated BB10 charges. Retail channel sales (of phones already shipped) during the period also showed the scale of the drop in its upmarket phones: of 4.3 million devices sold to end-users, only 1.1 million were BB10 handsets.

I feel terrible for the people working at RIM. This is the news they have to hear just days before Christmas.

It does not list the recent share price surge after Blackberry and Foxconn signed an agreement whereby the latter would take care of inventory, i.o.w no more inventory write downs for Blackberry, and promised an affordable OS10 device.